Introduction
In this part we’re going to be going over Sets and the different ways they influence can influence your training. As mentioned in the previous video on reps, A Set can be defined as a series of reps done consecutively to a previously determined range.
A series – Priority for the session
The way you organize your sets in a session can really let you shift priority to where it needs to go for the day. Generally speaking your first movement (movements) of the day will be the most important. Now that’s not to take any value away from the rest of your workout, that’s just to highlight the fact that you want to be efficient in how you spend your limited time and energy during a session. You want to have the hardest, most important, and often most taxing movements early on in the workout. That way you can taper off the intensity as you go along through the rest of the workout. This also has the added mental benefit of knowing that it only gets easier as you go alone. For our programming and your educational purposes we can refer to this first exercise or exercises as your “A series”.
B series – Accessory movements
The middle (or body) of your workout is where you would follow that up with some accessory movements. These are exercises that compliment the A series and/or goal of the session, but without being as demanding on you. An example of this could be doing a set of Squats in the A series and moving on to something like a Split Squat and Lying Leg Curls. You went from doing this Bilateral Compound exercise to exercises where you are now using less weight, focusing on only one leg at a time, and have a machine to make it safer for you to focus on keeping a high level of effort. For our purposes we can refer to this middle part of the workout as your “B series”.
C Series – Isolation and/or Corrective Exercises
Finally you get to the end of the workout. This is where you’re already pretty tired and you’ve gotten most of the hard stuff out of the way. Now we want to cap off this workout by making sure you’re doing stuff to keep your body healthy and doing stuff that leaves you feeling good as you finish up. Generally this is where you would have your smaller more isolated movements and/or your corrective exercises. These can be done to really bring some concentrated attention to
areas you were focusing on earlier but in an even more isolated or regressed manner, or to spend some time on exercises that will make sure you stay injury free and can help improve things like posture and alignment. We will refer to these as your “C series”
Time Under Tension (TUT)
So as you can see in the way you set up your A, B and C series, not only is the intensity and difficulty tapering off as you work your way through, but the movements also start bigger and heavier and end up becoming more isolated and regressed as you get closer to the end. If done right, things like this will really let you zero in on bringing up strength in a movement or an area of your body, or even just allowing you to concentrate more attention to an area that may be lagging behind. Organizing your sets in this way not only from day to day but across weeks or months really lets you get the most out of your training. You can manage your total volume of work, how it’s spread out across regions of your body or training certain movements so that you can minimize conflicts between training sessions and stay productive the entire time. Remember the guiding principles we should always keep in the forefront of our minds: Quality over quantity.
Tying things back to the lessons we learned in the video on reps, these two factors need to be especially considerate of each other. Manipulating these two variables together will let you really effectively manage your total Time Under Tension (TUT). For example, if you wanted to spend more overall time improving your Squat, you could increase the number of reps, play around with the tempo – which will be covered in-depth in the next video, or even increase the number of sets. So for example, instead of doing 3 sets of 6-8 reps of your squat, you could spend more time and effort towards progressing it simply by increasing it to 4 or 5 sets. With that simple change, you’re now putting in that much more work on your Squats (an extra 6-16 reps per workout to be exact, which adds up over time)
Asad Sayal
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Join personal trainer Asad Sayal, as he looks at essential factors to consider when designing your workout. From reps to rest periods, Asad explores how taking these variables into account, and using them in unison with each other can help you reach your goals quicker, avoid plateauing and progress your fitness journey.
Asad answers this not-so-straightforward question by defining what exactly a rep is, introducing rep ranges and how you can use this method to optimize and progress in your workouts. He also touches on the relationship between reps and load.
Did you know that the order in which you perform your sets is critical to your performance? Asad explores how to organize your sets in a certain sequence, in terms of intensity and difficulty, to get the best results and avoid injury.
Asad reviews the various types of sets that exist and which you should use depending on your workout type and goals. He discusses straight sets, supersets, tri-sets and circuits.
Setting a tempo for your workout is one of the most overlooked variables. Asad defines what setting a tempo for your workout really entails, and how you can use it to make the exercises you already know, feel completely new.
Did you know you can change how an exercise feels and what it does to your body just by varying the tempo? Discover how altering the tempo can produce a different kind of result and can bring about potential weaknesses and imbalances.
Rest and recovery are commonly misunderstood and misused. Asad explores common mistakes in regards to rest periods and different considerations that need to be made to ensure you are getting the biggest return on your effort.
Asad reviews general guidelines you can implement into your training, to ensure you are getting optimal rest. He discusses how the amount of rest is dependent on what your goal is at that time, and how you're performing the exercise.
Asad defines load and how it directly relates to the other variables covered thus far: reps, sets, tempo and rest. He highlights the value of thinking beyond just the amount of weight you lift in any given exercise.
Have you ever been stuck on a certain weight and can’t seem to go heavier? Does this mean you’ve reached the ceiling to your strength? Asad explores how you can combine variables, like tempo and reps, to avoid plateauing and increase the weight in your exercises.
To sum up this series, Asad recaps all the variables you should consider when designing a training program. He defines progressive overload and emphasizes the importance of the variables covered in this series and how to use them in synchrony with one another.